


every word, shot down in flames

by JemDoe



Category: Russian Royalty RPF
Genre: F/F, POV Alternating, also god i hate myself, katya might as well be an oc bc fuck if i know more than "she existed", the lowercase is an aesthetic choice, this self-indulgent as hell tbh ngl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-06-27 02:14:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15675969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JemDoe/pseuds/JemDoe
Summary: goodbye, she writes, hiding the letter from her sisters’ views.





	every word, shot down in flames

_ goodbye,  _ she writes, hiding the letter from her sisters’ views. if they see her writing to katya, they’ll interfere, and this is not something she wants her sisters meddling with;  _ don’t forget me. many kisses from  _ and here’s where the temptation slides in: to write  _ many kisses from me, i love you so much, please let my name live in your tongue and lips and memory; don’t forget me, my love, my darling, my sweetheart, my life in another body _ but she knows the men in the uniforms will read her letter and if they read the truth she so wishes to tell the world, they’ll put her to the firing squad before her family, if not worse (and she doesn’t want to think about  _ worse _ ).

in the end (because they always come, and she can feel it approaching, a deep sense of fear rooted in her bones), she decided that the kisses are not from  _ her _ , but  _ many kisses from us all to you, my darling.  _ the  _ my darling _ is as far as she’ll come to the truth she cannot tell.

if luck is on her side (when has it ever been? she was never the lucky one of her sisters), her letter will reach katya. katya will read it and see the tears she doesn’t allow herself to spill in the paper, smearing the ink into blobs, making it frail and thin. her letter will reach katya and katya will tuck it in a drawer after reading it, and the letter will live on even if she doesn’t, even if katya doesn’t, hiding her feelings and letting them live. 

and then, one day, someone will find the letter, and they’ll read and see what couldn’t be said. they’ll say “they loved each other” and there won’t be a single soul that’ll say “no, they were just friends, the love they had was platonic”, because god (if he exists), she loves katya more than she loves herself. she would lay her life for katya, if katya so even suggested it (but katya won’t, because katya wants her to live as much as she wants katya to live).

if luck is on her side, their love will survive even if they don’t. 

she signs  _ your A.,  _ hands the letter to a soldier, and lets luck decide her destiny.

* * *

the letter she receives is from anastasia. she can recognize the careful wax seal, made by a soldier. she can recognize the loopy, sluggish writing of anastasia, and tears open the envelope, refusing by principle (this will be her downfall, these principles of her, but she refuses to bow down to the new order, not while her anastasia stays alive and well) to touch the part a soldier touched. her fingers did this on their own, but she knew where she drew her lines.

the only good soldier was her brother. that was it. not one more, not one less. only her brother.

the letter, she finds, it’s mindless drivel, mostly, with a few interesting information dropped in, so that whoever read it would pass it by, thinking it was just more of a young girl’s ramblings, but she knew better than to underestimate her darling anastasia.

the information she had was simple and sad: they were being moved tomorrow. somewhere far, near the mountains, where the people fighting for her family wouldn’t reach them as easily as in the former capital. this was the last letter, for the man who censored them was tired, and as such -

_ goodbye. _

_ don’t forget me. _

this makes her hand itch; she wants to grab her pen and paper and write  _ don’t say this to me, don’t leave me alone in this dark world without you, my light, my everything. _

and yet she doesn't because she's a coward. instead, all she does is file the letter away and try to will the tears stinging in her eyes away, pretending she mever knew her anastasia.

**Author's Note:**

> dont ask me i got no FUCKING idea


End file.
